


Old Friends

by DragonflyxParodies



Series: Riches to Rags [1]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU, DCU (Comics), Smallville
Genre: Apologies, Bruce is HYPED AS SHIT not that you can tell, Forgiveness, Gen, Lex Becomes An Uncle, Lex just wants a friend, Lionel's funeral is DUMPED, Listen to Old Friends by Elderbrook, Post Lex and Clark Falling Out, Reconciliation, cuz i quote it here, i've taken liberties there yall, not that he deserved one in the first place, tim is less subtle about being hyped as shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-08
Updated: 2020-09-08
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:00:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26364565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DragonflyxParodies/pseuds/DragonflyxParodies
Summary: He's finally free of his father.Lex just wants to be better.And that starts with finding his oldest, dearest friend.
Relationships: Lex Luthor & Bruce Wayne, Lex Luthor & Lionel Luthor, Tim Drake & Lex Luthor
Series: Riches to Rags [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1915876
Kudos: 116





	Old Friends

_“I got a couple old friends_

_I swear I’m trynna make amends_

_Forget the years I haven’t been_

_And we can ride around again like before”_

X

He leaves his father’s funeral nine minutes and thirty-seven seconds after the priest has finished his speech and a stately urn has been lowered into the ostentatious pile of marble and granite his father always referred to as the family plot.

There’s something comforting, something relieving, about the fact that Lionel will be buried there alone.

There is a helicopter ready and waiting for him back in Metropolis. It has been on standby since Lex first confirmed the body was Lionel’s six days ago. Only now does it feel safe enough to use.

Most of the journey – to the helicopter and then to Gotham – flies over his head. He has trouble focusing. He’s on edge, and if he were kinder to himself he would admit that he felt sick, too. He’d never planned for this. Hoped, yes. But there is a difference between wishing the fist that beats you away and seeing it actually disappear.

He snaps back to himself when he climbs out of an unremarkable black sedan and into the heart of Crime Alley on an early Gotham evening. Not unremarkable, he amends. It’s clean. Dent-free and no matter the casual wear it sports, still new enough to make it conspicuous. To make him conspicuous.

When he leaves his bodyguards behind, they nearly try and protest. He pays them too well for that, but it’s almost concerning.

The eyes and the grumbling that follow him down the street make a sharp turn into outright hostile when he stops in front of a small run-down bar wedged between a decrepit apartment complex and a convenience store. Al’s Bar, a faded sign reads.

The door is unlocked. Lex’s nerves flare up, and if he hadn’t had a lifetime of learning to ignore his instincts behind him, he would have turned around.

A bell tinkles as he enters. An elderly man is cleaning glass at the counter on the far wall, a blonde girl flopped listlessly on the counter top beside him. Both of them look up, and both of their expressions shutter when they see him. It’s not recognition, exactly. The opposite, he thinks, and that’s interesting.

He hasn’t been able to do near enough reconnaissance to feel comfortable here, but...he’s trying. He’s here. And he hopes that will be enough.

“I’m afraid we’re closed.” The old man says, and Lex recognizes that voice, the accent unchanged even after so many years. He stops, unsure.

A door set just off the side of the bar swings open, and a dark-haired man laden with boxes steps in. He stops dead when he sees Lex. The surprise on his face –

He is a Luthor. And that might not actually mean anything, but Lex is not weak and he will not let himself be weak. He steels himself, lifts his chin, and offers Bruce Wayne a sharp smile.

X

“I heard about your father.” Bruce says softly, and Lex isn’t quick enough to hide the way he stiffens. His thanks comes out stilted, when the blonde girl – Stephanie, she’d said her name was – hands him a glass of some bubbly brown liquid and bounces off.

“You’re talking to me.” Lex notes. He doesn’t look at Bruce until the other man lets out a quiet hum. Bruce is...solemn. More solemn than he’d been at his own parent’s funeral.

“I know what kind of man your father is. Was.”

“I tried to come. Once.” Lex Luthor does not blurt things out. He comes close then, though. Bruce nods.

“I’m glad you’re here now.”

“I don’t know if I believe that.”

Bruce’s mouth flickers up at the corners, and he relaxes into his seat, some tension Lex hadn’t even realized he’d been holding fleeing.

“Do you remember Tommy Elliot? He was like your father. Still is. He wasn’t kind enough to stay away.”

Lex can barely put a face to the name anymore, but that hardly matters. He knows what Bruce means, what he’s saying.

They hadn’t been close as children. He, Bruce, and Tommy had been shunted off together while their parents socialized at parties regularly. That had been – it. But Bruce had still been one of, if not the only, friend Lex had ever had. Before Smallville. And he might be the only friend Lex has left now, after.

“What happened to you was wrong.”

Bruce’s expression grows grave, and Lex throws his hands up.

“I’m not -”

“I know that tone. No. It’s been – I don’t want it, anyway. Not after what they’ve done to it.” His tone gentles, but he doesn’t look away from Lex’s eyes and – well. Lex can appreciate clear communication when he sees it. And a loophole when he hears it.

“Years ago, my father had you evicted when he found out I was going to meet you.”

“Your father did a lot of things, Lex.”

There’s no judgment there, and Lex cracks.

“I just lost my best friend to my father’s actions. I think I came here for closure on my end. I won’t blame you if you ask me to leave; I won’t come back if you do.”

Bruce is silent. Lex drinks the glass he’d been given – pop, too sweet and too carbonated to enjoy. When he’s finished and set the glass down dead center on the cardboard coaster sitting in front of him, he looks up. And Bruce shrugs.

“There’s nothing to forgive. I’m not – I’m not who you remember. You’re not who I remember, either.”

Lex doesn’t know what to say to that, but he doesn’t have to – that back door Bruce had first appeared from swings open and a boy hurtles himself across the room. He dives for Bruce, who lifts his arms up so the boy can crawl across his lap and hunker down between Bruce and the wall. Then the boy looks up, meets Lex’s eyes, and freezes. Lex freezes too. Bruce doesn’t seem to notice – he puts a hand on the boy’s head and ruffles his hair.

“Tim. This is Lex – he’s an old friend of mine.”

“I know who Lex Luthor is.” The boy deadpans, and squishes himself under Bruce’s arm.

“...Bruce. Do you know who that boy is?”

Bruce twitches, and the two men stare at each other in absolute silence for a heartbeat.

“I have five children.” Bruce finally says, and squeezes his arm around Tim just a touch tighter. The boy glares up at him, and Lex sighs.

He can put the pieces together; he knows what he’s seeing.

“You took him in after he fled?” There’s no other word for it. Timothy Drake’s disappearance had been calculated and thorough; even without the official story being that he ran from his foster home, Lex had believed that the boy had gone on his own. And of course he would find the only person in all of Gotham who could understand what he was going through.

“I took all of them in.” Bruce mumbles, and Lex just -

“Don’t tell anyone.” The boy says, and his voice is so sharp and self-assured that Lex does a double-take.

This is a boy raised like him; this is a boy with a weapon up his sleeve. It isn’t a request; it’s a threat.

“I could help make it official.” He says, and the boy scoffs.

“No you couldn’t. Not given our situation, and not without drawing attention – danger – to my siblings.”

Lex doesn’t bother to hide his smile, and he glances at Bruce to see his old friend looking at the boy, at his son, with a look of pure adoration. It would have been a punch to the gut before his father’s death, but – it’s reassuring now, a relief. The Bruce of his memories had been gentle to a fault, and this is – it means he didn’t just run from the jaws of one wolf to another.

He’s – more easygoing about this than he thinks he should be. But he’s shaking, he realizes, his hands trembling finely in his lap.

“I think you trust too easily, Bruce.” Lex says. Bruce laughs.

“I – ha, no. You’re a good person, Lex. You’ve always been a good person. And you’ll have a chance to prove that to everyone else, now.”

The boy grins a little, when Lex looks away.

“I have questions about your Brother Eye project.” The boy says, and Bruce sighs.

“Tim, we talked about this.”

“I asked first!” The boy cries with all the betrayal of a child who doesn’t understand where they went wrong. Something in Lex pangs in sympathy, though Bruce just scrubs his hands over his face – he doesn’t draw a hand back or scowl.

“How did you hear about that?”

“I told my cousin I’d do her chores for a week if she hacked into your systems and pulled the files for me.”

Lex blinks. Looks to Bruce. Bruce’s smile is awkward and more than a little pained.

“Last chance to flee.” He rumbles.

The thought never even crosses Lex’s mind.

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place before Jason's return/the League forming.


End file.
